Thursday, May 27, 2010

OK, I'm not saying I'm the most important music fan in the world. But up until a month ago, I was one of the few who actually paid for music -- CDs, to be more specific. So it always amazes me when I hear about a song or album or concert by one of my all-time favorite acts after the fact, leaving me to ponder the oft-asked question: "If I didn't know about this, who did?" Such was the case last night when Sandra Bernhard tweeted about having just seen Chrissie Hynde, JP Jones and the Fairground Boys performing new songs together here in the city:

chrissie hynde jp jones and the fairground boys at housing works book store tonight singing their beautiful songs from new album fidelity. chrissie and jp jones have created one of those albums that will tear your heart out when it's real nothing can stop it.

That I missed the boat on this great chance to see Chrissie in an intimate setting was upsetting enough. But as I searched the Internet for more information about this upcoming album, I also stumbled upon a duet she did with her ex Ray Davies -- from last December. When I was a kid, it would have been impossible for something like that to get by me. You'd watch MTV News every day. You'd listen to Rock Over London on the radio. And you'd read Smash Hits, Cream and Rolling Stone from front to back -- and you were covered. While information is so much easier to "come by" these days, it's really starting to feel like an overload from which I will never recover. I guess Google Alerts were invented for a reason, but something tells me they'd just pile up like my other 1,315 unread e-mails I'm still working my way through. (Who knows, maybe there was a note from Chrissie herself in there.)

The story about this Davies-Hynde duet is a real pisser. But suffice it to say that the man for whom she famously became "The Adulltress" (she didn't wanna be-ee-ee) some 30 years ago and then split from remains someone with whom she has no interest in being in the same room. (Wait'll you see the special effects they used to get them "together" in the video!) The collaboration, it seems, was the work of their 26-year-old daughter, Natalie Ray Hynde, but somehow I think a cover of "Fairytale of New York" would have made for more interesting listening. Let's hope this new group project is as good as Sandy says it is!